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Author Info

Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac was born Jean-Louis Lebrid de Kerouac in Lowell, Massachusetts. He was raised a Catholic and spoke only French until he was five or six years old. He began to write when he was very young, publishing his own sports newspaper for his friends. After attending the Horace Mann School for Boys in New York City (where he was a scholarship student and a football star) and Columbia University (through sophomore year), Kerouac worked as a railroad brakeman and a fire lookout, and later joined the Merchant Marines and then the Navy. He married three times and had a daughter, Janet Michelle, also a writer. In three weeks, in his West 20th Street apartment, he wrote ON THE ROAD, his best-known novel, on rolls of Teletype paper pasted together; however, contrary to myth, the novel was the result of extensive previous planning and drafts. Kerouac is most famous as the chief figure among the writers known as the Beat Generation. His writing sparked heated debate among critics, some decrying his sloppy prose and lack of cohesive plot, others praising his verbal spontaneity and exuberance. Kerouac died of alcoholism at the age of 47.

Jack Kerouac--born Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac in Lowell, Massachusetts, and raised a devout Catholic--spoke only French until he was five or six years old. He began to write when he was very young, publishing his own sports newspaper for his friends. After attending the Horace Mann School for Boys in New York City (where he was a scholarship student and a football star) and Columbia University (through sophomore year), Kerouac worked as a railroad brakeman and a fire lookout, and later joined the Merchant Marines and then the Navy. He married three times and had a daughter, Janet Michelle, also a writer. In three weeks, in his West 20th Street apartment, he wrote ON THE ROAD, his best-known novel, on rolls of Teletype paper pasted together; however, contrary to myth, the novel was the result of extensive previous planning and drafts. Kerouac is most famous as the chief figure among the writers known as the Beat Generation. His writing sparked heated debate among critics, some decrying his sloppy prose and lack of cohesive plot, others praising his verbal spontaneity and exuberance. Kerouac died of alcoholism at the age of 47.

Praise

"That's not writing, that's typing."

"While 'On the Road' is certainly autobiographical, it is much less a book about Sal Paradise/Jack Kerouac than it is a full-length portrait of Dean Moriarty/Neal Cassady....By some magic Kerouac managed not just to capture him on the page, but to endow the whole book wish his manic energy....Something in me resists calling 'On the Road' a novel. It has not a trace of a plot....Yet it is the most readable of books, for it has great narrative drive and tremendous...energy."

"'On the Road' belongs to the new Bohemianism in American fiction in which an experimental style is combined with eccentric characters and a morally neutral point of view. It is not so much a novel as a long affectional lark inspired by the so-called 'beat' generation, and an example of the degree to which some of the most original work being done in this country has come to depend upon the bizarre and offbeat for its creative stimulus....As a portrait of a disjointed segment of society acting out of its own neurotic necessity, 'On the Road' is a stunning achievement. But it is a road, as far as the characters are concerned, that leads nowhere--and which the novelist himself cannot afford to travel more than once."

"Any attempt to label an entire generation is unrewarding, and yet the generation which went through the last war, or at least could get a drink easily once it was over, seems to possess a uniform, general quality which demands an adjective....The origins of the word 'beat' are obscure, but the meaning is only too clear to most Americans. More than mere weariness, it implies the feeling of having been used, of being raw. It involves a sort of nakedness of mind, and, ultimately, of soul: a feeling of being reduced to the bedrock of consciousness. In short, it means being undramatically pushed up against the wall of oneself. A man is beat whenever he goes for broke and wagers the sum of his resources on a single number; and the young generation has done that continually from early youth."

"Quite apart from its characterizations, which are given and illustrated rather than developed, the chief distinction of this novel is its sentimental emotion. Certainly, 'On the Road' is a romantic treatment of delinquency and, as such, is of considerable interest."

From the Publisher

Annotation

Sal Paradise, a young writer, travels from New York to Los Angeles with his friend Dean Moriarty and an assorted hodgepodge of women, bohemians, and others. Rich descriptions of characters, places, and music demonstrate Jack Kerouac's exuberance and his love of the freedom of the road. An autobiographical novel (like most of Kerouac's books), ON THE ROAD involves characters who were the author's real-life friends and Beat cohorts: Neal Cassady, Gregory Corso, Allan Ginsberg, and William Burroughs (here appearing, as in Burroughs's own fiction, as the character Bill Lee). Publishing legend has it that Kerouac typed the manuscript frenziedly on large rolls of Teletype paper, not pausing for revision, and deposited them on the desk of his startled editor. Revolutionary not only in subject matter but also in style, this book (written in 1950) launched the Beat movement and crowned Jack Kerouac its king.

Editors Note

The legendary 1951 scroll draft of On the Road, published as Kerouac originally composed it||IN THREE WEEKS in April of 1951, Jack Kerouac wrote his first full draft of On the RoadÂ?typed as a single-spaced paragraph on eight long sheets of tracing paper, which he later taped together to form a 120-foot scroll. A major literary event when it was published in Viking hardcover in 2007, this is the uncut version of an American classicÂ?rougher, wilder, and more provocative than the official work that appeared, heavily edited, in 1957. This version, capturing a moment in creative history, represents the first full expression of KerouacÂ's revolutionary aesthetic.